In the past cheese, such as cheddar or colby, have been manufactured in an open top vat and after draining of the whey from the vat, the curd is cut into slabs or blocks which are hand turned or inverted and stacked to drain the residual whey from the slabs. Subsequently, the curd slabs are transferred to a curd mill where they are cut into cube-shaped chunks and the chunks are then transferred to hoops or drums for pressing and aging.
The conventional process, as used in the past, requires considerable manual labor in cutting and matting the curd slabs, and as the curd slabs are exposed during the matting process there is a possibility of contamination of the curd by outside materials.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,217,818 is directed to an apparatus for continuously matting and milling of cheese curd. In accordance with that patent, a pair of porous endless belt conveyors are mounted in superimposed relation in an enclosed housing. A mixture of cheese curd and whey is fed as a layer onto the belt of the upper conveyor and the whey is drained through the belt and discharged through the lower end of the housing. The curd layer is transferred from the discharge end of the upper conveyor to the lower conveyor and, as a result, is inverted. On discharge from the lower conveyor, the curd layer is fed to a curd mill which cuts the mat of curd into cube-like chunks.
In the usual cheese making plant, a number of curd forming vats may be utilized, and the mixture of curds and whey is then transferred from each vat to the continuous matting and milling apparatus. It is highly desirable to be able to unload each vat and eliminate the whey immediately after curd formation, because the prolonged presence of the whey can detrimentally effect the flavor characteristics of the cheese. With the cheddaring machine of U.S. Pat. No. 4,217,818, the rate of feed of curds and whey from a cheese-making vat to the cheddaring machine is dependent upon the speed of movement of the curd layer through the cheddaring machine.